"People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them - that does not occur to them."
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

Though Wittgenstein is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential philosopher of the twentieth century, there is an aspect of his thinking that has been largely ignored by much of the work that has been written about him and inspired by him, even though he himself thought it centrally important to everything he did. That is his opposition to scientism, the view that all real knowledge is scientific knowledge, all real understanding scientific understanding.Continue reading →

The Wittgenstein Initiative is a Vienna-based independent non-profit with a mission as ambitious as it is important. The Wittgenstein Initiative aims to harness the originality of quintessentially Viennese thinkers whose visions were proffered in the hope of effecting real change in the world. One of these thinkers is Ludwig Wittgenstein, the namesake of the Initiative. Others include Karl Kraus, Adolf Loos, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich von Hayek, and Arnold Schönberg. And it is in the spirit of these thinkers and cultural change-makers that the Wittgenstein Initiative is seeking to move us towards re-conceptualizing and re-experiencing our engagement with the world through art and thought (see its Vision & Mission).